Why Does It Happen?
I burned out early. I was done being a doctor at the end of fellowship. Although I took a job as a critical care physician, I desperately sought to alter my career somehow. I looked into website development, something I had been good at in high school. I took a few refresher classes on my days off and started coding my own sites. Luckily, my first job out of fellowship accepted many of my schedule demands, such as day shifts only, and after about a year I recovered and remembered why I had loved medicine to begin with.
Critical care physicians have the highes......

I have only been in practice for 14 years, but I remember the exact reason for my first experience of burnout. Medicine was rigid, and for good reason as we deal with life or death on a daily basis. However, as I looked out into the working world there was no room for flexibility in the traditional primary care practice. Complementary medicine was looked down upon. Wanting to work part time was viewed as laziness. As a woman, there was always more to prove, and wanting a family was not encouraged (even amongst other female doctors). There was no conversation about work......

From the moment, you became a physician and mom you were looking forward to the journey and joy of being a mother and serving others. As you reflect on your life’s journey in the New Year, you should commend yourself for the accomplishments and goals that you achieved. This year is a time to reflect on the changes that you would like to make in your work and personal life. How can you improve on integrating the demands of work and the responsibilities of home? How do you make time for connecting with loved ones, when your career has a demanding schedule? Most importantly how do you make ......

No matter their jobs or ambitions, nearly all parents need to work hard to maintain work/life balance. This can be even more difficult when working to balance parenting with the demands of medical school. The good news is, many parents have taken on the challenge before and managed to take care of children while pursuing their education. Here are a few of the tips that have helped many moms make it work:
Create a solid support system.
Many parents have or raise children while pursuing their education. Find the people in your classes who are also parents. You can share stories, help one anoth......

Between your long hospital shifts, 2 year old throwing tantrums, dinner, cleaning house, 5 year old with another cold, phone calls, dishes, grocery shopping, bills, emails, studying for the boards, house repairs… when does the list ever end? There has to be a way to schedule in a little time for self. For me for the past six years of trying to keep up with work and my young kids - I’ve decided there is no personal time unless you make it happen.
Every mom needs a break from "the crazy" only children can create, but MD moms – they need sanity and personal time even more. Their sacrifice ......

It is almost summer which is the time for weekly lawn mowing. When you instruct your landscape company to take care of your lawn, where do they stop with mowing? At the boundary line. I assume you don’t instruct them to mow your neighbor’s back lawn as well. After all, people need to be responsible for their own properties and need to learn boundaries in their own lives too.
Meet Mary (name changed) who is a female physician who was exposed to this life lessons several times in the last few months. As the department chair in her organization, she was constantly struggling with the workload to......